Journal: 1-6

Diversity in a not so Divided State

     Last week, for some reason my question did not show up when I posted my blog. My question was: I wonder how negative campaigning will affect the polls of the Disctrict 7 Congress Race in a week. It's been a week and I've done my research. I was not able to find poll of the current election, however I did find past polls of Cantor winning every election since 2002 by a landslide.

Year	Election	Candidate	Votes	Percent
2008	general	Eric Cantor (R)	233,531	62.7%
		Anita Hartke (D)	138,123	37.1%
2006	general	Eric Cantor (R)	163,706	63.8%
		James Nachman (D)	88,206	34.4%
		W. Blanton (I)	4,213	1.6%
2004	general	Eric Cantor (R)	230,765	75.5%
		W. Blanton (I)	74,325	24.3%
2002	general	Eric Cantor (R)	113,658	69.4%
		Ben Jones (D)	49,854	30.5%

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=district-2010-VA-07

     I did some research on youtube for his past political ads and most of them have been positive instead of negative. Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe positive campaigning can be alot more effective than negative campaigning in the long run. However, maybe Floyd Bayne or Rick Waugh can shake things up this time using negative campaigning.

      This past week, we did research about Utah and the presidential race of 2004 and started to watch the movie This Divided State. This was a film made by a college student to capture the cotroversy of bringing Michael Moore to speak at a college in Utah. The reason this was so controversial was that Michael Moore has an extremly liberal point of view and the state of Utah was extremly conservative. Many believed that the youth would be corrupted by what Michael Moore had to say and didn't want him to come and share his opinion.

     In class we discussed how this relates to the freedom of speech and whether or not his freedom's are being respected. I believe his freedom of speech isn't being protected. He should be able to express his views with other people who may not agree with him. Most of the people in Utah in this movie seem to appear as hardheaded and resistent to change and associate Michael Moore with evil because he doesn't share the same conservative views. I think it's good for people to see different views on everything. It helps them to develope their own opinion of certain issues.

     An application of this to a controversial issue today is letting the Tea Party candidates speak their minds and opinions about modern issues. It seems as though somehow, the Tea Party has recently been given a bad name and anything associated with it seems to be associated with evil and anarchy. However, I believe that they shouldn't be judged by the bad name someone has given them. They should be able to give a speech without protest and be judged critically on what they have to say and where they stand on the issues rather than the political party they are associated with.

     I leave my blog today with a question: How many supreme court records are there involving the issue of Freedom of Speech and what was determined?

"CQ Politics | District Detail: VA-07." CQ Politics | Congressional, Presidential and Political News, Blogs, Member Profiles. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. <http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=district-2010-VA-07>.

"Free-speech Dialogue « Mission Europa Netzwerk Karl Martell." Mission Europa Netzwerk Karl Martell. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. <http://missioneuropakmartell.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/political-cartoons/free-speech-dialogue/>.

Kurtzman, Daniel. "Alice on Wonderland Tea Party Cartoon - Political Cartoon." Political Humor - Jokes Satire and Political Cartoons. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. <http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/politicalcartoons/ig/Tea-Party-Cartoons/Stupidest-Tea-Party.1-4w.htm>.

Journal: 1-5

Politics Today

     Last week I asked the question: Should politicians be accounted for what they have done in their past 100%? After extensive research on the internet trying to find what people think about the matter, I was unable to find any substantial evidence for my question. However I did find a question website on which someone had asked: "What Kind of Background Makes a Good Politician?", and many of everyday people responded which interesting views on the matter. A few responses from this website include:

"A man or woman who is an expert in economics, finances, stocks, etc; who is compassionate to the plight of the many, who takes care of this country, not foreign aid; who is humble."

- To me, this person represents the people who care about how the political candidate is actually going to do his or her job based on their background of knowledge. 

"A compassionate, honest, altruistic person. Not one who (like most nowadays) put his/her interests first, is corrupt and is in it mostly as a stepping stone to riches and fame."

- This person seems to represent those who care about their polictician having a reputation of being honest and not corrupted. 

"Respectfully, your question is flawed, because you assume that there is such a thing as a good politician.

There are indeed, and the one thing they all have in common, Mate, is that they are DEAD. "

- This person represents the people who don't believe there could be such a politician that has a clean background and is flawless.

     There are many conflicting views about this matter, much more than is represented here. It is because there are so many views that there is no one right answer and that is why my question wasn't able to be answered fully. However, through me asking this question I came upon interesting research which opened my eyes up to the opinions of the American people about the kind of candidate they would like to see in office.

     This past week in class we finished the documentary "The Perfect Candidate" about the candidates Oliver North and Chuck Robb. From this documentary we discussed tactics used by political campagins of propaganda such as special appeals, fear appeals and logical fallacies. We also discussed tactics of positive and negative campaigning which really caught my attention in class. In the video it stated that negative campaigning is more effective than positive campaigning in regards to getting a political candidate elected.

     In my opinion, I believe negative campaigning is more effective in the long run than positive campaigning. Even though sometimes when a politician puts out a negative ad bashing his opponent it can backfire, I believe that people mostly care about what was actually said in the ad than where it came from. They become infuriated about the allagations against that particular opponent and will thus vote for anyone on the ballot except the candidate the ad was made about because they believe everything the ad says and don't want that person in office. I believe if a candidate only puts out positive views, he won't get any attention in the race.

     This discussion in class led me to think about how the current race for congress in the 7th district of Virginia is being run. It is split between three candidates: Republican Eric Cantor, Democrat Rick Waugh and the Independent Tea Party Candidate Floyd Bayne. Curious about this election, I researched on the websites of all three candidates. I noticed that Eric Cantor didnt have anything bad to say about his candidates. However Rick Waugh and Floyd Bayne show discontent over the way Eric Cantor has been doing in his job. Floyd Bayne seems to be doing the best at negative campagining in this election and in my opinion I believe he will thus cause a major upset in this election against Eric Cantor and Rick Waugh. Here's one of the videos featured on Floyd Bayne's website:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSr_etsm9eY&feature=player_embedded

 

Bayne, Floyd. Floyd Bayne - The Conservative Tea Party Candidate - Virginia's Seventh District Floyd Bayne for Congress - Home Page. Web. 17 Oct. 2010. http://www.floydbayne.com/.

"United States House of Representatives Elections in Virginia, 2010." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 17 Oct. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Virginia,_2010#District_7.

"What Kind Of Background Makes A Good Politician?" Ask Questions, Get Free Answers - Blurtit. Web. 17 Oct. 2010. http://www.blurtit.com/q8989942.html.

Journal: 1-4

Politics and Good Judgement

    From my research of last week's question, I was able to come up with a list of even more tactics the media uses in order to make it seem like they are telling the whole truth but they are really deceving. These tactics include:

-Pre-interviewing to make sure you only get people who believe what you are trying to convey.
-Applying peer pressure on a person while interviewing.
-Only telling the half-truth of the subject, lying by elimination of want you don't want to include in your story.
-Only publishing facts they believe should be right instead of facts that go against their point but have sufficient evidence.

     I believe that the media uses these tactics to make the news more exciting because although there are many fallacies in the news today, the media is almost never held accountable for what they do.

     This past week we finished the documentary Michael Moore Hates America but started a new documentary titled: The Perfect Candidate. This is a movie documenting a race for congress in Virginia with emphasis on Oliver North and Chuck Robb. Both of these candidates have their own problems in their past that have left a long lasting mark on their poltical future that no one will forget. Oliver North helped President Reagan trade hostages in Lebanon in exchange for U.S. weapeons and Chuck Robb was accused of having an affair with a playboy model and going to parties with cocaine being used.

     Although some people believe that political condidates should only be accountable for what they're doing now and their political actions, I believe that politicians should be held accountable for what they have done in their past. No matter how great a political leader may be, you can always tell their true character by what they have done in their past regardless of whether they have changed their ways or not. I believe it's always ethical to judge people on what they have done in their past just as much as what they do in the present.

     Something this issue prompeted me to think about was how tolerate American people can sometimes be. For example, when President Obama was asked the question of whether he had smoked marijuana before he said that he had when he was younger but that he was a confused teenage boy at the time. It makes me wonder that if American's 100% cared about the President's past as much as they cared about what he was doing now, if he might not have gotten elected becase of something he had done in his past that he was ashamed about.

     This can apply to many politicians in today's society such as John Edwards having a baby with another woman other than his wife who is dying of cancer. Although this is still really shocking to the American people, he might still have a career in the future after all the hysteria and hype about this scadal has settled.

     Some may say that that is a great thing about our country; that we can do something in our past and not stand judgement for it in the future after we've changed. However I overall disagree. Being too forgiving cause us to overlook major chracter flaws in our political candidiates. It is their character that plays a big part in how they can be trusted to be responsible and reliable to the American people without becoming an embarassment. I've noticed in life that if a politician is held accountable for their actions in their past, the right choice will almost always be made by the American people.

     I leave today with a question: SHould politicians be accounted for what they have done in their past 100%?

"Primer on Media Tactics to Deceive." JunkScience.com -- Steven Milloy, Publisher. Web. 11 Oct. 2010. http://www.junkscience.com/news3/singer55.html.

 

"State Department Backs Muslim Cartoon Protests." Sweetness & Light. Web. 11 Oct. 2010. http://sweetness-light.com/archive/state-department-backs-moslems-on-cartoons.

 

Journal: 1-3

Documentaries: Fiction?

     I'll start this post today by answering the question I asked in my last post about gun control. While doing research, I came up with the folliwing statistics of how many people get killed in major countries by guns whether by suicide, sccidental or homicide.

"gun-related deaths per 100,000 people in the world's 36 richest countries in 1994: United States 14.24; Brazil 12.95; Mexico 12.69; Estonia 12.26; Argentina 8.93; Northern Ireland 6.63; Finland 6.46; Switzerland 5.31; France 5.15; Canada 4.31; Norway 3.82; Austria 3.70; Portugal 3.20; Israel 2.91; Belgium 2.90; Australia 2.65; Slovenia 2.60; Italy 2.44; New Zealand 2.38; Denmark 2.09; Sweden 1.92; Kuwait 1.84; Greece 1.29; Germany 1.24; Hungary 1.11; Republic of Ireland 0.97; Spain 0.78; Netherlands 0.70; Scotland 0.54; England and Wales 0.41; Taiwan 0.37; Singapore 0.21; Mauritius 0.19; Hong Kong 0.14; South Korea 0.12; Japan 0.05. " http://www.guncite.com/cnngunde.html 

     It turns out that America does in fact has more deaths per capita than any other country in the world with Brazil trailing behind us. What does this mean? Are we just natural violent? No one can know for sure but with these statistics, we could sure afford to have better gun control in our country. Perhaps if we did, this number would decrease.

     This past week we finished up Bowling for Columbine and even though it made some excellent points about gun control, we learned that he made some of these points unethically. In Michael Moore's documentary he used many clever techniques to make people look bad and make it seem like things were happening that actually weren't. At first I didn't notice it or pay much attention to it, but after a while I started to notice some of the tricky editing techniques he used to twist the reality of a situation instead of presenting the true straight facts.

     Some agree and dissagree on Michael Moore's documentary being unethically made. As for me, I agree 100% that it was made unethically. He used guerilla interviews where he would randomly come announced to speak to a person on the spot and sometimes in his documentaries only shot their answers to the supposed "question" even when the question wasn't shown. One of the most unethical things he did in this documentary was editing and piecing together different parts of Charleton Heston's speeches to the people of the NRA. Michael Moore made it seem as thought Charleton didn't care about speaking 10 days after the Columbine shooting but really he did and Moore conveiniently left that part of the speech out and instead replaced parts of his speech after Columbine with a clip from an earlier meeting Charleton had. He also used misleading statistics in his movie as well as asking rhetorical questions to others in an effort to make them look bad.

     Class this week prompted me to think about all the bias and unethical methods the media uses in modern day society. Do we see it as much anymore? Ofcourse. Almost every news show has some sort of it. Lots of radio shows and TV shows about celebrities have it as well. And now, more and more documentaries are starting to show unethical principles. We as American citizens who just want to ear the straight facts have to learn how to sort through the bias and editing techniques used.

     For example, on the Tv show TMZ which deals with filming celebrities doing crazy or unexpected things. They never seem to be showing the whole story of what really was going on at the time the incident happened. They often use music to provoke a certain type of mood from the viewer and also edit sounds bits and throw in many fallacies to make the celebrities look even worse than they already do from the film that the got.

     The main observation I've had this week is how gullable some people are when it comes to sources being bias. No one would believe bias anymore if they were educated properly on how to seperate bias from reality. People need to take notice of selective editing, false headlines, photos and video that don't seem to be 100% real, bogus statistics, random sources and word choice. Just imagine, if every person in the United States had the ability to take notice of these things, would there be anymore reason for news and other media to even put out biased news?

     I'll end this post today with a question about editing and bias in regards to the media: What other tactics does the media use to make news sound more fascinating or more untrue than it actually is?

GunCite: Gun Control and Second Amendment Issues. Web. 03 Oct. 2010. http://www.guncite.com/cnngunde.html.

"Pro Gun Political Cartoons Thread...." DOWN RANGE TELEVISION with Michael Bane - DOWN RANGE TV - DRTV. Web. 03 Oct. 2010. http://www.downrange.tv/forum/index.php?topic=1975.0.

"Media Bias Against Israel." Welcome to Palestine Facts. Web. 03 Oct. 2010. http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1991to_now_media_anti_israel_bias.php.